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It’s kinda good but it completely destroyed the European manufacturing for solar
When panels were 30c/watt, projects at $1/watt in EU and US happened. 70c/watt was spent on labour, copper, support structures, and grid connection equipment. All of those can be locally produced, with possible exception of last item.
At 6c/watt, that is over 90% of power projects are local economy boosting instead of 70%. It provides cheaper energy that is useful for industrialization and cost of living benefits too. US tariffs on solar are entirely about protecting oil/gas extortion power instead of a $10B solar production industry that needs fairly expensive support.
Solar imports does not cause energy dependence. You have power for 30+ years with no reliance on continuous fuel supplies. Shoes and apparel is a $450B industry in US. You need new supplies every year, and it makes much more sense to secure supply in that industry for war on the world purposes.
You’re either an astroturfer or useful idiot spreading oil lobby talking points.
Either you believe the climate science or you don’t. If you do, you know that we don’t have time for industry protectionism.
Do not assume bad faith over anything you disagree with.
While I disagree with the original statement, hostility never changed anyone’s mind.
I’m not trying to change their mind. I’m trying to expose them.
It is good, period.
Local manufacturing is politically advantageous and may employ some people at the same time, but that’s where benefits end.
Europe didn’t reject Chinese face masks during COVID-19, and Europe shouldn’t reject Chinese solar during a climate emergency.
Solve that first, and political struggles later.
It’s not only a political struggle. Working conditions are tremendously better in Europe, Environmental Protection as well. Manufacturing photovoltaics takes a huge pile of chemicals that need to be handled properly to not cause any harm to the environment - China neither cares nor has any other incentives to actually do this properly, which is exactly why they are so cheap. Theres also the issue of poor quality, that if you’re manufacturing something that can have a significant impact on the environment, it should “count” and not be waste 10 years later.
Not only that, China’s subsidies are utterly unfair.
Destroying the environment in one part of the world to “save” a different one due to climate change is just ridiculously stupid and simple minded.
I see where you’re coming with that, and in principle, some of the points you make I would clearly share under different circumstances.
But to me, even with the side effects, rapid rollout of green tech (even if its production is not kept to the best standard) beats slow incremental growth with good standards in place, given the urgency with which world requires it. After all, even poorly produced Chinese options very much do offset their footprint compared to the alternatives.
There are some points for concern, such as the use of lithium ion batteries, for example, but Chinese companies also think ahead and implement alternative options - in case of batteries, they increasingly work with sodium-ion instead.
As per “unfair” subsidies - I’d rather urge all countries to go all in and compete on those, rather than complain about those who implemented them. Subsidies for green tech are essential to secure our future, they boost the green industry and expedites its expansion, and they should only be seen as a good, not the evil.
Solar manufacturing is not destroying China’s environment, fossil fuels are. By a massive margin.
They need to get off that merry go round as quickly as possible. While the efforts they’ve made are incredible it needs to continue to accelerate.
I wouldn’t say they’ve achieved these prices through subsidies in the way many people think. government support pushed their entire renewable industry ecosystem, western manufacturing went belly up, and now they are reaping the benefits.
It seems like China is putting a lot of efforts into becoming environmentally cleaner in the last few years though. I’m hoping that they’ve finally realized that pollution is bad.
There’s something called an environmental Kuznets curve that suggests that a population will sacrifice environmental health to industrial degradation in favor of per capita income up to a point, after which they are affluent enough to care, and after this environmental health improves. China seems to be at the inflection point.
Manufacturing photovoltaics takes a huge pile of chemicals that need to be handled properly to not cause any harm to the environment
Source for this? Cadmium is exclusive to 1 US manufacturer.
By providing big subsidies to green energy developement. Something the EU could also have done but refused to. And so they lost their entire lead.
Yep the EU will be beholden to a dictatorial regime again. Instead of placating Putin for gas it will be Xi for solar panels and batteries.
At least those items you only need to buy once.
What? Have you ever had a battery powered device for longer than 2 years?
All of them, plus storage batteries are under much less abuse and are different chemistry that lasts a lot longer.
I didn’t mean they only last 2 years but battery degradation is a pretty common and known thing.
By a quick search I didn’t find any claim of storage battery lifetimes outside of 10-15 years, so there doesn’t seem to be a breakthrough in tech I wasn’t aware of. 15 years is hardly the lifetime of a house, so you certainly don’t “buy only once”.
Solar panels also don’t work indefinitely but their efficiency degradation is more on par with the lifetime of major parts of the building, like the roof itself.
The comparison commodity was Gas. Does something that can only be consumed once even have a lifetime?
Theyre $1.25 per watt in south America right now (we have an energy crisis due to climate change caused drought)
Solar has always an extremely high ratio for megawatt per mass unit.
This price is really good
Here in Belgium there used to be big government subsidies for solar panels 5-10 ago.
Now the same wattage battery + solar setup without any government subsidies is a good chunk cheaper than that time with the large subsidies.
Pretty cool and shows the power of government renewables subsidies. A huge percentage of houses in Belgium have solar panels now.(and electricity still costs 0.30€/kWh average because of fossil fuel energy lobbies)
Now that there is a local industry around it, most renovations and almost all new builds include them.
As your northern neighbors. We did subsidize it too, but now the privatized energy companies started whining that there wasn’t enough capacity, so now they charge you for creating free energy
You guys shouldn’t complain, you still have saldering (net metering) ánd get money for the electricity you have left which is still a huge subsidy.
Yes I’m considering buying a high power laser so I can send the energy back into space instead of paying the power companies for the privilege of giving them electricity.
Great idea! Some inspiration right here :
electricity still costs 0.30€/kWh average because of fossil fuel energy lobbies.
This is the price of guaranteed electricity delivered to your doorstep. We can’t get rid of gas fired power stations and kms of electricity grid network yet.
4 million households in Australia have solar panels.
They are great value.
Just have to buy 1100 panels 😋 but then the price is 0.055€/watt …
I Want one, but only one or a couple, to put on my balcony…
Thousands of people buying rooftop panels was never going to be the best way towards a Water/Wind/Solar (WWS) future. Fitting panels to the roof has to work around the roof geometry and obstructions like vents. That makes every job a custom job. It also means thousands of small inverters rather than a few big ones.
Compare that to setting up thousands of panels on racks in a field. As long as it’s relatively open and flat, you just slap those babies down. You haul in a few big inverters which are often built right into shipping containers that can just be placed on site, hooked up, and left there. Batteries need inverters, too, so if your project includes some storage, then you only need one set of inverters.
I get the feeling of independence from the system that solar panels on the roof gives people, but it’s just not economically the best way to go. The insanely cheap dollars per MWh of solar is only seen when deploying them on a mass scale. That means roofs of commercial/industrial buildings or bigger.
Rooftop units might not be the least expressive, but they are absolutely the way to go. The less we rely on the utilities, the more demand we take off of their adding grid, that they refuse to upgrade. It also means more energy independence. A friend of mine has a small rooftop setup that has completely offset his electricity isn’t to the punt that he bought a plugin hybrid that never goes out battery for his day to day travels and costs him nothing to charge.
If you want energy independence, push for community solar. Neighborhoods or municipalities get together to own their own solar field. Then you get a measure of independence while also taking advantage of economies of scale.
These are topcon modules only. Considering a 400W panel will have about 72 modules in it, that’s only about 15 panels worth. Of course, then you have to actually build the panel and connect the modules, put it behind glass inside a frame, then put in a bypass diode and leads for connection. So an actual panel ends up being about 5-10X the cost of the modules per W.
You can pay a lot less than 10x for completed panels. https://store.santansolar.com/ amazed me.
does the link not work in 'murica?
Would not want to infect patriots with Communism
Good news perhaps but I’m sure I won’t see any benefit in Scotland, still thousands to add solar panels.
Scotland has really good wind power, anyway. Between that, nuclear, and a few other renewable sources, you guys are down to 10% fossil fuel energy use. So don’t worry about solar.
You know, if you people wanna ditch the Kingdom and join the club, I don’t think it’s too late.
Yup. Average here in south US is 25k for a home system without battery backup.
At the risk of getting political, you should expect that to go up under Trump. The tariff war with China during his first term kept panel prices high, and it’s going to be worse this time. And that’s not his only policy that will affect pricing.
For electricity generation: Solar across the UK was about 5% in last year, while Wind was about 29% and Nuclear 13.9%, and hydro 1.3% - so 49.2% of electricity generation over the last 12 months was carbon neutral.
That’s a huge success story - still a long way to go, particularly as that does not include Gas burned in homes, but the UK is moving in the right direction. And Scotland is a huge source of Wind & Hydro power for the whole country.
So even if the barriers to solar in your home are still high, the grid is getting cleaner and cleaner every year. There are also community projects installing wind generators which you can join/invest in if you do want to try and get a slice of cleaner energy and solar is not realistic.
Edit: Source on UK electricity generation: https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/historical Good data on UK electricity generation
Installation the trouble. Roofing is expensive. Next time you have to redo the roof: then it’s time
Assuming these prices are ideal for a solar grid, which EU country(s) would have the highest chance of shifting towards solar; I wonder
Probably all of them. Germany is really not ideal for solar in terms of weather, yet they are installed by many people all over the place, even today. With the cheaper prices things will get even better.
Germany is already over 50% renewable. :)
Appreciate that, glad to see there is data pointing these things out
Any good store that will sell me a super cheap and good set including inverter here in Germany? I mean they’re on Amazon for 250€, but maybe there is a better shop?
Any of the Discounters, really. ALDI, Lidl, Netto, etc have regular offers in their online shops.
Hmm. But with those three, the simple sets (2x400W + power inverter) seem to be ~100€ more expensive than on Amazon. Maybe I have to go with Amazon then. Thanks anyways! I’ll keep an eye on discounted offers.
A hundred euro is quite a difference. Didn’t expect it to be that much, tbh.
The only consolation is that, with the discounter sets, you will get something that has been tried and tested and everything is according to the relevant technical standards. Should be, anyway.
What I’d like best is to just buy them at a regular store. Not do onlines shopping in the first place. (And then figure out how to return something that was delivered with some special service. I guess you can’t drop them off at the next DHL place, like with the other Amazon stuff.)
But I guess they’re fine, too. The Amazon sellers have the same “brand” inverters like Ecoflow and Growatt.
